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Re: The time has come

machinist says the head is within spec so he reccomends changing the gasket and retorque after you heat cycle the engine. He said he had problems with some blower motors at times (he mostly builds v8 race motors) and has had good results with copper spray so it looks like im going to try this again with a felpro gasket and copper spray this time, and also re torque after heat cycling the motor.

Re: The time has come

update: new headgasket installed, torqued to 80ft lb with hylomar spray (felpro) and got it back together. Came up to temp, car idled/sounded good. Drove around for a little bit and everything looked great. still on 14psi, did some boost pulls 1st-3rd gear and the temp started to climb a lil, not pegged but climb from normal. Thats not really normal for this car so i checked the coolant overflow and it was bone dry, so i checked the rad and it was rather dry and the top hose was dry, so then i checked the oil cap and voila! Chocolate milk.

SON OF A BITCH.

headgasket #2 lasted about as long as headgasket #1. motor runs good but uses water, same as before. The first headgasket was scorched between all cyls and between the water jackets and cyls from #4 and #3 the worst but they all looked like they leaked. Sounds like the motor has bigger problems than I thought... Im curious if maybe I have too much torque on the head gasket and thats causing problems

Re: The time has come

i know the head was flat, and the block was flat originally and it would take quite a bit to warp the block, so my feeling is somthing else is going on here. Maybe the studs arent seated correctly... maybe overtightening the headgasket is killing it.

Re: The time has come

jerry, im on 14psi, rich, with a very conservative ignition map. I didnt heat cycle the engine and re torque, but it was torqued to 80ft lb. That should be more than adequate even if I lose some torque after it heat cycles. On my stock bottom end i have hit 17-18psi spikes and never had issues. Ive looked at the plugs, pistons and everything else and I dont see any signs of detonation. With all the leaking and issues ive seen my personal belief is that either im running out of thread on the head studs preventing the headgasket from getting the full clamping force or somthing else is preventing the head from fully seating down. The first headgasket showed signs of leakage between all cyls. Im going to have to look into guayanabo suggestion and see where im at. Im noticing that other guys running arp headstuds right now are also having problems even NA.

Re: The time has come

Originally Posted by AccordEpicenter

my personal belief is that either im running out of thread on the head studs preventing the headgasket from getting the full clamping force.

sorry to but in but are there any signs of oil leaking around the outside of the head? No strange dips in oil pressure at the guage, if you have one>?
just curious, I thought the same thing I quoted you on here when I first read this.

Re: The time has come

no oil leakage externally from the headgasket area... oil pressure has always been rock steady. I took 2 nuts off of the head studs to see if i was running out of thread and it looks like i have plenty of thread even if i take the washer off, the thread continues into the head, so maybe this isnt it... Ill have to see when I take the head off if i can get the headstuds to seat better but my feeling is that its a long shot.

Who knows,i might be just killing the headgasket with wayyyy too much bolt tq, 80lb ft with arp lube is like 100-110lbft with 30w oil... Stock is 49lbft with 30w oil...

Re: The time has come

first was honda this one was a fel pro. Ill have to pull the studs out and clean them up but after talking to the machinist and a few others it sounds like its just the head stud tq thats killing the gaskets...

Re: The time has come

https://www.hondapartsdeals.com has honda headgaskets. these are becoming hard to find. Speaking with a machinist and an engine builder today they estimate the engine was around 20% down on power with the blown headgaskets. I might have to make another trip to the dyno to break 500whp on paper